Yummy in my Tummy

We had the yummiest dinner last night. It was a bit more involved than I prefer, but (unlike some other meals I've tried before) it was WELL worth the extra effort.

Coconut Chicken with Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

3 eggs

1/2 cup coconut milk

1 cup flour

2 cups panko bread crumbs

2 cup shredded coconut

1 tsp salt

Vegetable oil

Sweet chili sauce

Prep:

1. Cut your chicken into strips. If you cut diagonally, you will not end up with really short end strips.

2. Mix eggs and coconut milk in first bowl.

3. Mix flour and salt in second bowl.

4. Mix panko and coconut in third bowl. (I put my coconut in a Magic Bullet first as the smaller pieces stick better to the chicken, but that isn't necessarily)

Heat Oil: I used a dutch oven for mine so that the oil wouldn't pop out. A frying pan will work too. You want enough oil to not just cover the pan, but have a little to fry the bottom of the chicken strips in. Heat it until right before it starts smoking. Smoking oil is too hot. You can sprinkle some flour in the oil and if it bubbles when you put it in, it is hot enough. I kept having to adjust my heat down as the oil temperature kept rising. When it smokes, turn the heat down a little. You'll need to add some more oil as you cook your batches of chicken (4 breasts too me 4 rounds in the pan) and you want to make sure the new oil gets heated up.

Note: I worked with about 6 strips of chicken at a time. You don't want to crowd your pan as your oil will get cold and not cook as well. Plus it was easier to do the dredging process with 6 strips at a time.

Time to cook:

1. Put chicken in flour mixture and coat completely.

2. Put chicken in egg mixture and coat completely.

3. Shake off excess liquid and put chicken in panko/coconut mixture and coat completely.

4. Place chicken in hot oil and cook about 2min per side. You are wanting to give the strips a light brown color.

5. Remove chicken and place on paper towel to soak up excess oil.

6. Repeat until all chicken is browned.

7. Place chicken on pan and put in a 350 degree oven for about 10min (depends on the thickness of the chicken).

The chicken: it is possible to cook the chicken completely in the oil, but I didn't want to burn the coating and my trips were a little thicker. I found it was just easier to pop it into the oven to finish it off. Once out of the oil, you can test the done-ness by pushing on the chicken. If it is firm then it is probably done, if it is bouncy then it isn't done.

Serve with a Sweet Chili dipping sauce (we used Frank's Red Hot). So yummy!!!

Total time to prepare and cook: took me about 45min, but I think as I make it more, I can get that down to 30min. It seems really complicated, but once I got into it, I found it really simple. Looking forward to the leftovers today and making this again soon!

Original recipe found here. I tweaked things a little. She claims that this costs only $1.15 per serving!